


stay here (in my thoughts)

by Phoenix_Allura (Artemis_Autumn_Marie)



Series: Nix's Whumptober 2019 [17]
Category: Black Panther (2018), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Gen, Hurt T'Challa (Marvel), Hurt Tony Stark, M/M, Whumptober 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-20
Updated: 2020-03-20
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:41:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23231113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Artemis_Autumn_Marie/pseuds/Phoenix_Allura
Summary: Whumptober Day 17: "Stay with me."Of course they had to fight Doom, and of course he had to leave a radiation cloud behind. It would have been too easy for him to just leave them an exit.(How much would have changed, T'Challa will ask himself later, if it hadn't been there?)
Relationships: Tony Stark/T'Challa
Series: Nix's Whumptober 2019 [17]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1507226
Comments: 2
Kudos: 24





	stay here (in my thoughts)

“This will be fun! Come on, let’s go!” T’Challa sighs. He is not happy that Tony not only is willing to go into a radiation cloud, but that he wants to do it without the proper equipment.

“We will wait, Tony, for the team to rescue us. Your suit is not working properly, the safe thing to do is wait.”

“You could go ahead, then, your suit is fine.” Even after months, Tony is still so certain the other shoe is going to drop and he is going to be left behind.

“I will not leave you, Tony. Our trackers are still on, they will find us soon.” T’Challa knows part of Tony’s urge to move is that they are in the desert; they were fighting Doom when he set off a small bomb, apparently designed only to give off extreme amounts of radiation. Doom had been out of sight by the time they both came to.

“Fine.” T’Challa can see, in the flitting of his eyes and twitching of his fingers, that Tony would like nothing more than to move. Distracting him may work.

“Is there any way you can work on the suit now, if you take it off? Or get our coms up again?” He offers. Tony tilts his head and gives him a soft smile.

“I might be able to get coms back on, I only need the helmet off for that.” Tony takes it off fully. “If I take off the suit, I might not be able to get it back on.” Tony’s suit is not his latest, not having the nanobots T’Challa knows Tony prefers. If it had been, they would have been moving already.

“Even just contact with FRI would be wonderful,” T’Challa says truthfully. Tony won’t risk sitting in this suit, not damaged like it is, so T’Challa stands shoulder to shoulder with him instead, despite the heat. He thinks it helps. They don’t speak while Tony works, but T’Challa hums the song Shuri has had stuck in his head for several days. After three repeats, Tony nudges him.

“Say hi to FRIDAY, kitty-cat!”

“Hello, FRIDAY.” T’Challa smiles.

“I am tracking the Dora Milaje now, their ETA is ten minutes,” FRI says. “Boss, are you going to try getting in contact with them?”

“Maybe. Ten minutes isn’t that long, though. What do you think, royal pantherness?”

“It may be beneficial, but not entirely necessary.” Tony shrugs, now grinning at him.

“I can think of a better way to pass the time.”

“You may have one kiss, Tony.” T’Challa leans down, kisses him gently, feels the sand on his lips. “We cannot be making out like teenagers when the Dora Milaje arrive.” Mostly because they’ll never let him hear the end of it. Tony goes back to tinkering with the helmet. T’Challa thinks it’s more to keep his hands busy than anything. FRIDAY keeps them updated.

“My king!” Okoye shouts as soon as they are within hearing range, the low hum of the plane familiar as her voice. “Are you injured?” T’Challa shakes his head, but Tony gives a so-so wave with his hand.

“We’ll have medical on standby.” They won’t land, not out here, but they are onboard quickly enough.

Even so, Tony’s face has grown paler.

From injury? Or from painful memories?

Maybe what T’Challa had been so quick to dismiss as memories veering into flashback and panic attack territory had been physical pain. 

“We should be back in about half an hour. Finding you was the hardest part; your trackers went offline for a few minutes.” Okoye tells him. “Get your consort out of his armor. I will have bandages ready.”

Even as he fights it, T’Challa feels his shoulders slump. Is he such a bad husband that he cannot tell when his beloved is in pain?

T’Challa follows Tony to the little changing room in the plane.

“Don’t freak out on me, T’Challa.” Tony is slowly, carefully working the left armpiece of the armor off. “Please.”

And that is when T’Challa knows it’s bad, and that not all of it is from this fight.

“What happened, Tony?” He asks, softly, the nanobots of his suit retract. He pulls a clean shirt on and kneels to help.

“Dummy happened. I was working, and he got hold of a prototype Shuri and I are half-finished with.” The last time Tony had been with Dummy was three days ago.

“The knife one?”

“Yeah. He didn’t realize what it was, I think. I’ve never really given him knives before. He ended up stabbing me in the side, pretty badly. I went and got stitches, antibiotics, everything. Had it checked out when I landed, too. The fight tore the stitches.”

Such a simple little thing. Tony should not have been fighting.

“We will get it taken care of when we land. Is there much bleeding now?”

“There will be a lot more when I take the chest plate off.” T’Challa throws the right leg piece away and stands.

“I am not angry with you, Tony. But I do wish you had told me.” Okoye steps in, bandages in hand. Between the three of them, they manage to keep the bleeding to a minimum once the pressure from the suit is gone.

Tony is still far paler than T’Challa ever likes to see him.

By the time they get home, Tony has passed out. T’Challa carries him, as quickly as possible, to the stretcher.

“He’ll be fine,” Okoye tells him, but he walks along with the stretcher anyway.

“Stay with me, beloved, stay with me.” He whispers it, but it still feels like a scream. He steps back, lets Shuri take by the arm and pull him away. He’ll see Tony soon.

“Shower and change, brother. Then you must eat.” Shuri directs his movements for the next hour; he’s told that they took Tony into surgery because his sternum had cracked sometime during the fight.

It’s metal, and the crack is small, but no one wants to risk it.

T’Challa tries to do some paperwork while sitting next to Tony, but he can’t.

He’s not anywhere close to losing him, so why does it feel like he will?

“Stay with me, Tony.”

“Not leavin’, kitty-cat.” Tony mumbles, but he’s still asleep.

Every few hours, when Tony doesn’t wake as he should, T’Challa asks.

“Stay, Tony. Stay here with me.”

“Of course, beloved.” Tony is still asleep.

It’s maddening.

But reacting is a good thing.

He’s not gone.

(Later, much later, when T’Challa resorts to pleading through his tears, Tony will not respond. He will not wake.

They do not know why.)

For all of T’Challa’s pleas and Shuri’s requests and Pepper’s sobbing and Rhodey’s grim ‘Just like MIT all over again, huh?’ and Carol’s threats, Tony does not wake.

He lives, he’s breathing on his own.

But he will not wake.

(It’s a year before they have to give him a ventilator.

Another before he stops reacting to the outside world completely.

His brain waves never stop.

They don’t know.

They don’t know  _ what went wrong. _ )

They’ve given up hope, four years later. T’Challa is on his own deathbed, suffering grave injuries from a fight that could have been avoided.

He's been in a lot of fights he could have avoided lately.

It’s then that he hears it.

_ “Stay with me, kitty-cat. You can’t just leave now.” _

And T’Challa does.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi!  
> It's a been a while, for both Whumptober prompts and this fandom. Hopefully I'll be writing a bit more now, with self-isolation and all.  
> Let me know what you thought!  
> Also, I have two more endings (really short tho) so if you want I can post those too!  
> If you want to chat, just drop by! https://nix-writes.tumblr.com/  
> ~Stay alive (stay alive)~  
> (sorry i had to)  
> As always,  
> Nix


End file.
